Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was an obsessive supporter of Malaysias opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur, Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years.

It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777-200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew.

But this newspaper can reveal that investigators had already spent much of last week examining two laptops removed from Shahs home.

One laptop taken away is thought to contain data from the flight simulator while a second contained little information. Zaharies personal laptop was not found, and is thought to have been with him in the cockpit of the plane, the source said.

Colleagues made it clear to us that he was someone who held strong political beliefs and was strident in his support for Anwar Ibrahim, another investigation source said. We were told by one colleague he was obsessed with politics.

Zaharie is believed to be separated or divorced from his wife although they share the same house.

A satellite was able to pick up a ping from the plane until 08:11 local time, more than seven hours after it lost radar contact, although it was unable to give a precise location.

Mr Razak went on to say that based on this new data, investigators have determined the planes last communication with a satellite was in one of two possible corridors  north from the border of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan through to northern Thailand, and south from Indonesia to the southern Indian Ocean.

India has a good 24/7 air traffic and military radar system, so does Burma and Thailand.

FL370 could have tailed another airliner and hidden in its radar shadow. But there would no point to a jihadist doing so with out making an attack which hasn’t happened.

The motive of the pilot was to evade detection. That happened as soon as FL370 reached flight elevation and turned off the ACARS. He turned off the transponder as soon as he was beyond Kuala Lampur air traffic control.

All the data points to a run to the S Indian Ocean to ditch where the waters run deeper than out subs can go.

I agree, there was possibly a fight in the cockpit. I believe the reason for the ascent to 40,000 feet + was to kill the passengers and crew and possibly the co-pilot stepping out of the cockpit.

The pilot can dump the cabin pressure but the limit switches stop the dump at an effective elevation of 14,000 feet. There would be a leakage of about 1,000 - 1,500 feet per minute rendering everyone unconscious in about 6 minutes, dead in 10-15 minutes.

the ping is just a handshake that does not communicate position information

Question: The transponder sends a signal that identifies the specific plane sending the signal, but what about these "pings" from the engine? Can they tell for certain they are from a specific plane, or could the pings be coming from any aircraft in that area?

1) Do we actually know there were marital problems and do we know the whereabouts of the wife and children. I’ve yet to see any reporting that indicates they are talking with authorities. Could they have left the home and skipped the country to reunite with the husband later?

2) There is no point in disabling the tracking systems if your intention is to drive the plane into the ocean. In fact there’s no reason to do anything other than overpower the co-pilot (this is assuming he’s not in on it) and drive the plane in the sea.

3) If this was meant to cause embarrassment to the Malaysian government, the bigger embarrassment would be to actually hijack the plane and turn it over to people who will actively work against the Malaysian government.

This sounds more like pre-planned plot to steal the plane to cause a problem for the government.

ACARS can be sent both via VHF radio and satellite - but Malaysia Airlines had not subscribed to the satellite version from London based provider Inmarsat.

Nevertheless, a satellite transmitter on the plane was pinging an Inmarsat satellite with empty data packets. And it is those that have allowed the plane’s position to be estimated on two tracks either side of the satellite.

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